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For more than 100 years the Society of Professional Journalists has been dedicated to encouraging a climate in which journalism can be practiced more freely and fully, stimulating high standards and ethical behavior in the practice of journalism and perpetuating a free press.

About the Foundation

Since its founding in 1961, the Sigma Delta Chi Foundation has promoted excellence and ethics in journalism. The SDX Foundation is a tax-exempt, 501(c)(3) organization that supports the educational programs of the Society of Professional Journalists and serves the professional needs of journalists and students pursuing careers in journalism.

Excellence in Journalism 2015Sept 18-20, 2015 – Orlando

Excellence in Journalism is the national journalism conference of the Society of Professional Journalists and the Radio Television Digital News Association. Join us in September in Orlando for training, networking, workshops and more!

SPJ Leads

SPJ News

SPJ Blogs: Newest Posts

Quill Headlines

Journalist's Toolbox

@SPJ_Tweets

Connect with SPJ

SPJ on Facebook

Upcoming Eventsand Deadlines

Become an SPJ Member

For more than 100 years the Society of Professional Journalists has been dedicated to encouraging a climate in which journalism can be practiced more freely and fully, stimulating high standards and ethical behavior in the practice of journalism and perpetuating a free press.

About the Foundation

Since its founding in 1961, the Sigma Delta Chi Foundation has promoted excellence and ethics in journalism. The SDX Foundation is a tax-exempt, 501(c)(3) organization that supports the educational programs of the Society of Professional Journalists and serves the professional needs of journalists and students pursuing careers in journalism.

Excellence in Journalism 2015Sept 18-20, 2015 – Orlando

Excellence in Journalism is the national journalism conference of the Society of Professional Journalists and the Radio Television Digital News Association. Join us in September in Orlando for training, networking, workshops and more!

FOI CommitteeThis committee is the watchdog of press freedoms across the nation. It relies upon a network of volunteers in each state organized under Project Sunshine. These SPJ members are on the front lines for assaults to the First Amendment and when lawmakers attempt to restrict the public's access to documents and the government's business. The committee often is called upon to intervene in instances where the media is restricted.

Freedom of Information Committee Chair

David Cuillier
Director and Associate Professor
School of Journalism
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85721
Work: 520-626-9694Email @DavidCuillierBio (click to expand)
David Cuillier, Ph.D., is director of the University of Arizona School of Journalism, where he researches and teaches access to public records, and is co-author with Charles Davis of "The Art of Access: Strategies for Acquiring Public Records." He served as FOI chair 2007-11 before becoming a national officer and serving as SPJ president in 2013-14.

Before entering academia, he was a newspaper reporter and editor in the Pacific Northwest. He has testified before Congress on FOI issues twice and provides newsroom training in access on behalf of SPJ. His long-term goal is to see a unified coalition of journalism organizations fighting for press freedom and funded through an endowed FOI war chest.

Second, in a more practical way, the right to privacy means the right to decide
with whom you share your personal information. Even so, we don’t always
get to decide who sees our information

America is considered an “open” society, in which we conduct most
of our business in public. We waive our right to privacy regularly by providing
personal information, or at least access to it, to people we don’t know.
Consider the following:

 Most of us have our address and telephone number listed in the
phone book.
 If you write a check at a store and a clerk asks to see your
driver’s license, you voluntarily show it.
If you apply for a loan or a home mortgage, you have to provide
quite a bit of personal financial information.
 Private businesses collect a great deal of information on your
spending habits. Every time you use a credit card you create a
record that may be shared with people other than the store and
your bank. Some businesses ask for information such as your
address or home phone number even on cash purchases,
ostensibly for their “customer database” or to qualify you for
special services. (It may also qualify you to receive unsolicited
material from that business or a related company.)
 Even something as seemingly innocuous as a magazine
subscription or a product warranty card asks for personal
information and, once you provide it, you don’t know who will see
it or how they will use it.

In many cases, the government does just that. For instance, your individual
income tax returns are not available to other people. The federal government
mandates that your medical and employment records not be shared with people
other than those authorized to see them. The Freedom of Information Act and
the federal Privacy Act protect individual privacy, as do state open records
laws.

Admittedly, the government may take an interest in aspects of your life you
would consider private, but it may do so only for good cause. For that information
to become publicly available may take extraordinary circumstances – a
court trial, for instance.

So, if Iwant to find out information
about my neighbor, all I have to do is ask?

It may not be quite that simple. You had better have a good idea what you’re
after before you go looking for information. You won’t get anywhere just
walking into City Hall or your state Capitol and asking for “all you have
on Robert Jones.”

For instance, if you want to check on your neighbor’s driving record,
you should make sure you can clearly identify that person.

Probably the most important single law protecting individual privacy is the
federal Privacy Act of 1974. This law (5 U.S.C. § 552A) sets forth the
rules under which the federal government’s executive branch collects,
manages and shares information about individual Americans in records “systems.”
The “systems” definition is a key element of the Privacy Act. Here’s
how a Tennessee legal site’s guide to the Privacy Act describes it:

A record contains individually identifiable information, including
but not limited to information about education, financial transactions, medical
history, criminal history, or employment history. A “system of records”
is a group of records from which information is actually retrieved by name,
Social Security number, or other identifying symbol assigned to an individual.

Some personal information is not kept in a system of records. This information
is not subject to the provisions of the Privacy Act, although access may be
requested under the FOIA. Most personal information in government files is
subject to the Privacy Act.

Simply put, the Privacy Act requires the federal government to provide information
about its records systems and to allow an individual to have access to his or
her own personal information and to correct any erroneous information in government
files.

The law also prohibits federal executive branch agencies from sharing a citizen’s
personal information with other agencies or with people outside of government
unless the request meets certain criteria. And it provides penalties for violations.

If FOI is such a good idea, why do the
media do so many scary stories about too much information being available?

Let’s face it – the media sometimes do stories because they can
get people’s attention. In today’s world, where safety and security
are not guaranteed, people understandably may be nervous about who has access
to sensitive information. Fear can be a powerful motivator.

We don’t want “the bad guys” getting their hands on information
they can use to do us harm, whether it’s national security secrets or
our personal identity or finances.

The stories that often do the most damage are those that take an individual
case and ask, “Could this happen to you?”

While these kinds of stories can be compelling, they may have nothing to do
with government-held information. Chances are, the criminal used information
easily found in the private sector.

To the frustration of knowledgeable FOI advocates, some of those stories have
become rallying cries for more restrictions on government records in the name
of protecting individual privacy.

Unfortunately, the effect of those stories is to focus almost exclusively on
the plight of the individual without examining the benefits of keeping certain
kinds of information available to the public.